1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chamber, particularly for use in vacuum plants, for treating or storing workpieces or other objects and/or for passing workpieces or other objects therethrough. At least one wall of this vacuum-tight chamber has at least one opening through which the workpieces or objects can be introduced or removed from the chamber. The opening can be closed by means of a closing member including a sealing member which acts together with a sealing surface. The sealing surface is arranged within the chamber and laterally of the opening. A circumferentially closed sealing member arranged on the closing member rests against the sealing surface in the closed position of the closing member.
2. Description of the Related Art
In many technical manufacturing processes and process steps, the vacuum plays an important and decisive role. During the manufacture of workpieces and other objects, these workpieces an objects are introduced into the vacuum and treated in the vacuum. The manufacture of semiconductors shall only be mentioned as an example. For the working and treatment of these objects or workpieces, chambers are provided within the vacuum plant or high vacuum plant which chambers can be evacuated and into which the objects can be introduced and from which the objects can be removed through closable gates and openings.
For evacuating these chambers, the chambers are connected to pumps through lines. It must be possible to separate the pumps from the chambers. Also, a plurality of such chambers can be arranged in series or parallel to each other, wherein the chambers arranged in series must be separable from each other through gates.
In the past, the requirement that the chambers must be separable was met by connecting the chambers by means of pipelines and arranging valves or slides in these pipelines. The individual structural components were connected to each other by means of flanges. Instead of the flange-type connections, the structural components could also be connected to each other by means of welding seams.
Groups of such structural components not only required a large amount of space, but they also are very expensive. They are expensive particularly because such connections within high vacuum plants and vacuum plants had to meet extremely high requirements with respect to tightness and because it was necessary to ensure that structural components of metal did not slide on each other under high pressure in the vacuum since no lubricants may be present in the vacuum. As a result, the structures were complicated and expensive and required a large amount of space.
An arrangement of the type described above is explained and illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,568,632. The patent essentially describes the vacuum chambers which can be separated from each other by means of slide-like closing members. The vacuum chambers are mounted immediately adjacent each other and are used for the vapor deposition of optical lenses or for preparing the lenses for vapor deposition. The slide-like closing members used in the patent cooperate with sealing surfaces. Circumferentially closed sealing members are provided, however, the construction and arrangement of the sealing members is not described in detail. Accordingly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,568,632 does not suggest a solution for solving the sealing problem.
Slide-type closing members with sealing members have also been described in conjunction with other containers in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,003,714, 3,142,410 and 2,227,712. The sealing members described in these patents do not have to meet the high requirements with respect to tightness as is the case in vacuum plants. Therefore, it was not necessary in these sealing members to provide special measures for reducing the load acting on the sealing member or for protecting the sealing surfaces themselves because such measures were not necessary in these types of constructions. In all these known slide-type closing members, the actuation of the closing members results in transverse and shearing forces acting on the sealing members. Moreover, the known closing members are constructed in such a way that the structural elements which generate the sealing forces slide on each other under substantial pressure.
It is, therefore, the primary object of the present invention to provide chambers of the above-described type which are inexpensive to construct and which make it nevertheless possible to separate the chambers safely and reliably and permanently from each other or from the pipelines or connected units.
Specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide a chamber in which all those operations are carried out within the chamber which in the past had to be carried out by means of complicated valves or slides outside of the chamber. In addition, the structural elements or element groups for carrying out these operations are to perform only simple linear movements. Also, the closing member is to be of simple construction. The closing member is to have as few components as possible which are movable relative to each other, so that the closing member can also be used in quick-closing and emergency valves where high accelerations occur.